And then we became MILLIONAIRES!

It’s hard to know where to start with Bali. Bali is a place where a lot of Australians go to surf, party and sit on the beach. It’s a tiny island but there is so much to do and see. However, it takes forever to get anywhere because the roads are more like little streets. Everywhere is so colourful and the people are extremely friendly. When locals talked to us and found out we were Americans they were so happy. They love Americans, especially Barak Obama who had recently visited Bali. There is trash everywhere; however, there are also lots of beautiful temples with colourful offerings everywhere. Also, EVERYONE rides mopeds – you can even find whole families riding on a single moped!

Getting There

Jessie and I left nice and early for the airport where we met up with Kim and Kelsey. After checking in for our flight we went to change money. We exchanged AU$150 and got 1,050,000 Rupiah!!!  We became instant millionaires! We were already excited but it made us instantly giddy! That changed slightly when we got on the plane. We had two flights; the first to Jakarta and then to Denpasar. We thought that the flight to Jakarta would be about 2 hours. Boy, were we wrong! We were sitting on the plane and the made the announcement over the loudspeaker with all the flight details; our estimated time of travel was 6 hours! And that was only to Jakarta! At least they had lots of movies, food and drinks. I tried guava juice – it’s delicious!

When we got off the plane in Jakarta we were hit by a wave of heat and humidity. We were a little hungry so we went to look for some food. It was so confusing! The money comes in denominations of 1,000, but they only show prices in denominations of hundreds. It didn’t get any easier after the first day. It was a quick 2 hour flight from Jakarta to Denpasar and then we were in Bali!

Visa: check
Ticket: check
Passport: check
MILLIONS: CHECK!!!!

It took the whole day to get there, so by the time we landed in Denpasar it was already dark. We grabbed our bags and jumped into a taxi – a 20 minute ride for $5…split between 4 people, not bad! We got to our fancy hotel, 100 Sunset Boutique, in Kuta where Emilia was waiting for us. By then we were exhausted and fell asleep as soon as our heads hit our pillows.

Day 1, Kuta

We woke up to rain. At the time we didn’t realize how much we’d appreciate the cool moisture. We went down for a delicious buffet breakfast with everything we would ever want to eat; eggs, pancakes (with chocolate syrup), fruit, croissants and vegetables. The best part…we could eat as much as we wanted! Since it was raining and we were kind of tired from all the traveling, we took our time eating (that was we had time to digest and eat more!).

Offerings

It was raining but it was so hot! We took a shuttle from our hotel into the heart of Kuta. Good thing Emilia had had a chance to wander around the day and she acted as our guide, directing us through the main street and little side streets. The rain ended up being so refreshing and although we were a little overwhelmed at first, we soon felt confident walking around. We spent the morning walking around and getting our bearings, and we didn’t realise how hungry we’d gotten! We had a delicious lunch for only $3-$4! We felt on top of the world!

After lunch, we were stuffed, and tired from walking around for hours in the rain. So we went on a mission to find a spa. There are spas all over the place; the trouble was finding a place that could accommodate all five of us at the same time. Finally, we found a place that had the fish foot spa. We went in and looked at what they had for massage packages. While we were waiting for them to finish up with their customers at the time, we all sat on a bench and let fish eat our feet. It was the weirdest feeling! These little fish just come and start picking at your feet! All it really feels like is a tingling. That is until the big guys come along – then it feels like a jackhammer drilling at your feet! After that, it was off to the massages. We had two hours with a full body massage, a fully body cleansing and a facial! It was so nice! We felt like princesses! At least for a while, then we got a little bored. I would definitely be happy getting a massage every day! (Maybe just an hour long massage though!)

Fish Spa

To end the day with some more pampering, we went shopping. This is where we put our bargaining skills to work. Everything was already cheap and it was hard to bargain for even lower prices. We soon got the hang of it and were getting great prices for all our touristy souvenirs! Of course we all got Bintang singlets so we could look like all the other tourists and all the other Aussie kids that head over to Bali. 

But that wasn’t our only adventure of the day. While we were walking around shopping, getting pampered, eating and just walking around, we were also looking for a place where they did dreads; Jessie wanted to get dreadlocks. We had been walking around and stopping in to ask people for a while and we were starting to get tired. Half the people didn’t know what dreadlocks were and the other half understood it was Bob Marley hair. Finally, we stopped in a tattoo parlour where there was a small statue of a guy with dreads out front.

Bali Family Tattoo was a little store with black and white tiled walls. We asked the guy if he did dreads, and he said that he didn’t but one of his co-workers did. However, we’d have to go to their other studio. We said that was no problem and asked for directions. The guy said that it was too far to walk this late in the afternoon and that he’d get some friends to come bring us over.

*Note: Mom, I am only telling you this because it all turned out fine*

All of a sudden, three guys showed up on mopeds to bring us to the other studio. These ‘friends’ seemed nice but the number 1 rule is DON’T TAKE RIDES FROM STRANGERS. It’s funny how we listen to all these rules when we’re younger. However, when you’re older and three guys on mopeds show up in a foreign country to bring you to a tattoo parlour, you say “why not?!”. So yeah, sorry Mom! I’m not going to lie, there were a couple of moments where it was a little sketchy. The roads in Bali are barely roads – they’re more like tiny windy side streets and they’re often pretty empty. At one point I turned around and Emilia motioned that Jessie wasn’t behind us anymore. That made me a little nervous, especially when we got there and Jessie wasn’t there. But she turned up a couple of seconds later and it was all good.

Dreaded Jessie and Lenny

It was about 5pm when we entered the studio and met Lenny. He had dreads himself and was talking the whole time. While we were there, there was a kid getting a 5-hour long tattoo. His friends had all ditched him and the poor guy looked like he was about to cry. He kept us amused for a good couple of hours but we didn’t realize how long we’d be there for. We ended being there for 9 hours!!! None of us realised how long a process it was going to be. At 4am we finally headed home for some long needed sleep.

For more information on the process of getting dreads, go to Jessie’s blog.

www.wollongongwanderlust.blogspot.com 

Needless to say, it was an extremely long, eventful first day in Bali!

Day 2, Kuta and Ubud

After such a long and exhausting day for our first day, we had a more relaxed second day. We had to check out of our hotel at 10am, but we were getting picked up to go to an elephant safari. Since we didn’t have a lot of time and it was a nice sunny, warm day we decided to take advantage of the nice pool and restaurant at the hotel. We were the first to get picked up which was nice because we were able to see more places than where we had wandered the day before.

100 Sunset Boutique Pool

We drove through the Seminyak markets which were so colourful. We made a mental note of coming back to these markets. From there we picked up a bunch of other people and headed to the Elephant Safari Park in Ubud. Even though Ubud isn’t very far away from Kuta distance-wise, however, it took a couple of hours to get there as all the streets were small little streets where you couldn't go very fast.

We got to the Safari Park in the early evening in time to feed some of the elephants. They’re huge and they were hungry. You have to be careful with though, as we soon learnt, because they do realise how big they are compared to us. Jessie was feeding an elephant and she moved her hand (with the food) away from the elephant and in the elephant’s attempt to get the food, it knocked Jessie over! Turns out it was a pregnant hormonal elephant which didn’t really help matters.

From there we got to feed a little baby elephant and then watch a show, staring the elephants. The presenter was Balinese, however, when he first talked we were all a little surprised – he had an Australian accent. We were all a little surprised, but it was kind of funny that an Australian accent felt familiar. The elephants did lots of tricks, including playing soccer and basketball, adding and some other cute elephant tricks. Then it was time for our ride.

We stepping onto the little platform and put our ‘seatbelt’ on. The ride was advertised as an elephant ride under the stars…being able to see some stars might have been useful. It was still fun and at one point, Emilia’s elephant came up beside Jessie’s and my elephant and then quickly overtook us! We passed the lodges where people can stay overnight (the elephants come and pick you up for breakfast) and through a small forest. There were lots of beautiful white trunk flowers that we allowed to pick. There were lots of statues along the way – all of elephants!

To end the evening, we had a buffet dinner. Again, we were happy as it was an all you can eat. Then it was on to our hotel. This one was in Ubud, called the Taman Harum. It was amazing. We had two rooms, both with two floors and the bathroom was outside! It wasn’t in a separate outside building but rather, there was no back wall of the bathroom – it was just open. The next day was going to be a full day so we went to sleep in our giant beds to get ready for what lay ahead.

                                                                                                                                           

Day 3, Ubud

This was probably my favourite day in Bali. We got up nice and early and met our guide, Ry. We headed to the rice paddies making a quick stop at these huge white sculptures. We passed temple after temple, moped after moped and rice paddies after rice paddies. We pulled over at the side of the road and hopped out the car. Through a tiny little entrance we started our tour.

We learnt about all the different stages in the life of rice as we walked through vast green landscapes. There was only a small little pathway for us to walk on so we walked single file with Ry pointing out fruit and insects along the way. At one point he stopped, pointed to a bright green snake which he told us was poisonous. Next thing we know he’s grabbed the snake and it twirling it around in front of us before he flings it into the flooded rice paddy below us!

That green thing is a SNAKE!

It was a perfect sunny day and although we probably looked gross and sweaty, we loved walking around, seeing the rice paddies which are so famous in this part of Bali. We passed by lots of rice farmers, cow sheds, and we were even invited into a farmer’s house! It was a tiny space with cows eating on one side, a small walkway and a plank where the sleep. With all of us in there, there was barely space to move but the couple seemed so happy and welcomed us happily.

After walking through some more parts of the paddies, which looked like they went on forever, we finished up the walking tour. As we sat waiting for the car to come pick us up, two local men were hanging out where we were stopped. One of the men climbed up a palm tree and cut down some coconuts. The second guy then proceeded to cut open a small section of the coconuts with a small axe. We then drank fresh coconut milk from the coconut – it was so surreal!

Our first stop was to a beach with black sand. The sand was so glittery and there were ladies collecting rocks and shells from the shore. On the way there we passed a procession; there were hundreds of people standing in trucks playing music. We learnt that this was a cremation celebration and that the Balinese have celebrations for everything. From there we drove to a traditional Balinese family housing community.

There are many different ‘houses’ within the housing complex for a traditional family. Each ‘house’ has as different purpose. There is the house where all the cooking happens, where the children sleep after a certain age, where the animals’ food is prepared and then the general living and sleeping areas. There is also a small temple within the complex.

Our last stop of the tour was to a huge temple. We had to put on some nice shiny blue skirts to cover our legs before we headed into the temple. There were many different parts of the temple; a musical platform, lots of shrines with statues and an area where women were preparing offerings. They invited us to watch and take a picture with them. One of the ladies put a flower in each of our hair. And that wrapped up our tour. We returned to the hotel for a quick lay at the pool and then it was off to the markets.

We stopped for a quick lunch in the heart of Ubud and then it was off to the monkey jungle. There were monkeys everywhere! At first we were really timid of the monkeys. We bought some bananas to feed them and it was amazing how they peeled the bananas! They are so similar to humans in the way they act and eat – it was amazing! There were lots of temples and statues around the jungle that we walked around looking at and taking pictures, and all the while monkeys were running around.

We had so much fun feeding the monkeys, then when we were heading out, I crouched down to take pictures of some baby monkeys because they were so cute and then all of a sudden there were three monkeys climbing all over me!!! One was trying to eat my backpack, and then one was just sitting on the top of my back. They were the little monkeys and they were so cute. Maybe if they had been the bigger adult monkeys I would have thought it was so fun!

We finished the day with some shopping in the market which was full of people, stalls and many different colours. It was extremely hectic and almost overwhelming as people kept asking you to buy their products. It was also raining so it was hard to walk through the tiny walkways without getting wet. It was a very full day and what better way to end it, than with shopping and food?!

Day 4, Ubud and Nusa Dua

Ubud is known for its cooking. So Emilia, Kelsey and I signed up for a cooking lesson at the hotel. Jessie and Kim went into the centre to do yoga. The first part of the cooking lesson was seeing where the food we were going to be preparing came from.  We went back to the market but to a whole new section where it was all food.

 We met the chef and she brought out all the ingredients, neatly prepared. I wish every time I cooked, all the ingredients could come readily prepared like that! We made three dishes; chicken curry, chicken satay and a tuna dish. It’s amazing how many spices go into our pre-mixed spices. We didn’t use an ounce of curry powder in our curry, yet it tasted exactly like your typical curry. We ground all the spices together on a huge stone grinder and put them in a huge pot to simmer. We also wove banana leaf baskets which we made rice in. We ended up needing a lot of help with those baskets – they were not easy to make! When we made the chicken satay, we used ground chicken and molded it over the end of scallions. The best part of the cooking lesson was that we got to eat it all!

After lunch we packed up our bags and headed for Nusa Dua. Bali was supposed to be a beach vacation with some shopping and sight-seeing in between. It took us until our fourth day to have a beach day. But it was perfect. Where our hotel was in Nusa Dua, was not where the main hotels and tourists stay. So we took a shuttle into the centre where there was entrance to the beach. Finally, we got some sun baking in! There weren’t very many people around and it was so nice to just lie down, nap and read. They had a “hello asean” convention on so we went to check it out. We got so many food samples!!! Jessie, Emilia and I went and they loved us – they kept giving us samples and asking to get their picture taken with us!! We ate so much pia – the chocolate ones are delicious!

We finished the evening with a nice dinner in the centre and then some swimming in the infinity pool at the hotel with a beautiful view of Nusa Dua.

Day 5, Kuta

This was Emilia’s last day, we didn’t really do anything, especially as we had separated and had some troubles with the hotel. We had booked a hotel online and then when we went to check it they didn’t have our reservation. Turns out we never got a confirmation e-mail for our reservation and the prices had gone up a lot. We decided to switch hotels but we had to wait until we were all together. We got a lot of reading it this day.

Since it was Emilia’s night we took a stroll in Seminyak where we caught the sunset and found a nice restaurant right on the beach. We stayed and sat on these huge pillows, and of course, we HAD to stay for dessert.

Day 6, Seminyak

We were on a mission. Remember those markets we passed when we were on the way to the elephant safari – we were in the same area and were leaving the next day, so we wanted to finish off our shopping in those markets. However, it turned out to be a much bigger mission than we thought. It was really hot and humid and we just couldn’t find these markets! We were getting tired and needed to rehydrate. Kim and Kelsey wanted to get their nails done before they left so we changed our mission to find a nail salon. Jessie and I left them to get their nails done so we could go back to the hotel, hydrate and maybe go to the beach.

La Lucciola

We had no idea how far away we were from the hotel but we couldn’t figure out how to get to the beach from where we were. We decided to keep walking because we had to get to the beach soon and we had walked a long way from the hotel. We were hot and tired but finally we found the beach. We stepped onto the beach and found ourselves in front of a big open restaurant. I looked at it in disbelief – it was the restaurant that Uncle Geoffrey had told us to go to for drinks at sunset, La Lucciola. It wasn’t sunset but we were hot and sticky and in desperate need of a drink. Although it wasn’t sunset, we had a great view of the beach and relaxed with delicious cocktails.

We had a nice dinner all together before Kim and Kelsey left for the airport.

Day 7, Seminyak

Jessie and I were the only ones left and our flight was leaving later that afternoon. There was only one thing left for us to do; surf. We went in search for someone who would rent a surfboard to us for the leftover money we had; about $5. We were running out of luck when we finally convinced someone to rent one for the both of us to share for an hour. We had such a great time, I got up and the best part about it was that I can now say that I surfed in Bali!!

We did a couple of last minute shopping, hung out at the pool by our hotel, had dinner and then it was time for us to head home. There are lots of exit fees that you have to pay when leaving Bali, we knew this and paid the fee in Bali. However, when we got to Jakarta where we had a layover, we found out that we had to pay another exit fee. We’d only accounted for one exit fee and there were no working ATMs at the Jakarta airport. Needless to say we were getting a little worried. Finally, someone found a working ATM for us outside the airport. For a while though we thought we might be stuck in Jakarta!